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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3→Archive 5

Page protection

G'day guys,

I've protected this page against further editing for the meantime. I don't know who is right in your budding edit war, and I cherish that ignorance. Revert wars are not constructive. Please apply at Wikipedia:Protected page when you feel you can handle this with more maturity than has currently been shown. Thanks, fuddlemark (fuddle me!) 15:10, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

"American terrorism" is documented and cited as a widely used term. There was no consensus to delete, rename, or redirect that article. It is against Wikipedia policy to make up neologisms like Terrorism by United States of America. It is also against Wikipedia policy to delete, rename, and redirect articles without consensus. I will not give my "cooperation" to people who are violating Wikipedia policy. --Peter McConaughey 15:20, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
Actually, "Terrorism by the United States of America" is a descriptive sentence. "American terrorism" is a neologism, and is inaccurate. It's not used to refer to the American continent, it's used to refer to the United States of America. See use of the word American. --Chaosfeary 15:33, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
Politically correct or not, the term "American terrorism" is widely used to mean terrorism perpetrated by Americans. The "descriptive sentence" that you made up is not used by anyone to mean anything except by you to misdirect the fact that you broke Wikipedia rules by essentially deleting an article without consensus. --Peter McConaughey 15:43, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
NO ARTICLE HAS BEEN DELETED - See Terrorism by United States of America. --Chaosfeary 15:49, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
Your Talk:Terrorism by United States of America is a joke. You made up that neologism and I will not support it. You renamed "American Terrorism" to your made-up neologism or "descriptive sentence" and then changed the definition, essentially deleting the original article. You can claim that you didn't delete it, but the effect is the same. Do you think people are so dense that they can't see what you're doing? People like you who ignore consensus, force their will on others, and justify their actions through misdirection, are the reason that Wikipedia fails to live up to its potential. --Peter McConaughey 16:14, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Title dispute

I came here from the RfC. To me, 'American terrorism' says "terrorist acts committed by citizens of the United States", while 'Terrorism by the United States of America' says "terrorist acts committed by, sponsored by, or endorsed by the government". Which is this supposed to be about? --Carnildo 21:29, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

I think that's the question. I see two or three possibilities: US state-sponsored terrorism; Domestic terrorism in the US; and maybe American terrorism as a political term. My thought is that American terrorism might take the reader to a disambiguation page where they could choose. Currently there are articles at Domestic terrorism in the United States and Terrorism by United States of America. American terrorism redirects to the second. Tom Harrison (talk) 22:23, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Bad Faith

Very bad faith move to rename the article!

Here is how this page (American terrorism) should look like:

For the term, see American terrorism (term)

For terrorism in USA, see Domestic terrorism in the United States

For terrorism by USA, see Terrorism by United States of America


--Striver 19:21, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Awesome

Good disambiguation page. JG of Borg 17:23, 13 December 2005 (UTC)


I am aboslutely amazed at the work that has been done here- with the disambig and the related articles. I came on board with this page when it was up for deletion, and someone had listed the American Colonists inadvertantly infecting Native Americans with European illnesses as American Terrorism.

Yeah, it was a mess.

Thanks to all who have participated. Sethie 00:09, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Move

Please keep the move discussion centralized at American terrorism (term). savidan(talk) (e@) 01:28, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Done, as there was no opposition... —Nightstallion (?) 07:17, 23 May 2006 (UTC)


Old uncategorised comments

NPOV may be the wrong tag. This is a touchy and controversial subject being approached, and this may not be the most diplomatic way to go about it. It is worth pointing out that, thus far, the article may as well be called "Grievances against the United States." Also, applications of the term (neologism?) "American terrorism" are only notable when they come from notable sources. If you're going to step into this breech, do it following WP sourcing, citation, and POV rules carefully. Tom Lillis 09:32, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Actually, i dont agree. The term is made legitimate by the use in prominent sources, but they dont refer as a single act as "American terrorism", rather it is a umbreall term for everyting the USA has done. It is easly demostrated by the widh of the events labeled "American terrorism". --Striver 14:13, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

for example:

"A year after America's terrorism war suffered a huge setback, with the revelation of Abu Ghraib abuses via pictures showing Iraqi prisoners" [1]


again, the term is widely used, and it is used to include a variaty of events. --Striver 14:19, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Can anything be done with this? Gues not... --Striver 15:34, 24 November 2005 (UTC)


Well as an umbrella it gives any wiki contributer a carte blanche to add whatever relevant information they have about "American terrorism" to this page. With such a broad definition it becomes a forum of anti-Americanism by the very nature of the subject. If there are to be pages on "United States Policy Towards American Indians" or "United States Intervention in Latin America" so be it, those are well defined specific topics where the idea of terrorism can be defined. However, to create one page specifically tailored to "American Terrorism" and the expression thereof is inherently anti-American and thereby POV. 63.161.169.66 19:05, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
This page is about the term "American terrorism" as a term. It's not about putative examples of terrorism by the US government. It's about the term, who uses it, and how it's used. If I search wikipedia for "American terrorism" I get a disambiguation page that lets me choose American terrorism (term) (this page here), Domestic terrorism in the United States, and a page about the book American Terrorist. There is discussion about having another page, about terrorism by the US, but I don't think we have one yet. I agree with BYT that such a page wouldn't be stable. Tom Harrison (talk) 19:45, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Possibly redundant.

After looking around Wikipedia to see if there were analogous pages for other nations (as I am entirely sure that the grievances being aired here are covered elsewhere), I found State terrorism#United States. As such, I am fairly sure that this article is redundant and probably unnecessarily inflammatory. I suggest you look at that and consider trying to reasonably merge the information or simply delete this article. Tom Lillis 22:07, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

That section has a reference to here as a main article, made by somebody else. Also, that section is to long and the issues there needs to be mergerd to this article, which im going to do. --Striver 10:02, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
Page is legit, see:

Im removing POV tag. --Striver 10:18, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Note the way those pages are written, and the way this one is written, before hastening to remove the {{NPOV}} tag. Those pages are about terrorism that occurs in those nations; this page is just a list of alleged terroristic crimes committed by the US. It clearly lacks a neutral point of view, and it's clear that you have grievances against the US which you are attempting to air on Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not a soapbox. An informative, POV-free article, like the ones you have noted, is appropriate; a page detailing a list of crimes committed by the United States, especially by someone with a clear political vendetta, is not. – Mipadi 15:47, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
well, both domestic terrorism, as well as foreign terrorism is covered by the term "American terrorism". Just do a simple google search. --Striver 19:29, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

WMD's

Someone removed the section about the US's use and ownership of WMD's. My question is- do we need a source for something that is self-defining, terrorism is the use of WMD's or violence against civilians to disrupt the functioning of society... and the WWII bombings fit that definition exactly.

As the article stands, the fact about the US's ownership of WMD's doesn't really fit, however, the direction it is headed, the US government and some citizens as people who have engaged in terrorist acts (see page on request for deletion about current discusssion), I believe that fact fits well.

Any thoughts? peace, 17:48, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Failed AFD

This article's AFD debate did not get consensus to delete. Johnleemk | Talk 13:23, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Brought back

Despite surviving an AFD, someone decided to delete the page and turn it into a re-direct to a stub. I've reverted to the page which survived the AfD till this is discussed. --Irishpunktom\talk 13:39, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't think the article should be a redirect right now, but it should start as a stub. There certainly was not a consensus to keep the article, there just wasn't consensus to delete. It makes much more sense to rebuild from a stub than to try to rework the horrible version that was put up for deletion. Carbonite | Talk 13:44, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
This probably means little since I wasn't involved and am not an expert on terrorism, but I agree with Carbonite. The original article was way too biased. A redirect is questionable since a lot of people do consider the US to have committed acts of terrorism. So the best alternative IMO would be to rebuild the article from stub level. Johnleemk | Talk 14:04, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
The redirect is vandalism -- please restore so we can work to improve this article, which survived its AfD minutes ago -- thanks. BrandonYusufToropov 14:17, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
I disagree. AFD is not a debate on whether an article should stay as an article or not. It's a debate on whether an article should be deleted. If the article becomes a redirect, you can't cite the AFD as consensus to undo the redirect. Johnleemk | Talk 14:23, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

About what?

What is this page to be about? A term in current use, or a phenomnon illustrated by examples? Terrorism by the United States of America seems to suggest it's about a phenomonon. American terrorism suggests to me that it's about a term. Also, I think more casual users will serach for American terrorism than for the other.

If it's to be about a phenomonon we'll need a definition of terrorism. Does the U.N. have such a definition, or a draft for one? Or is there another generally agreed on/commonly used in Wikipedia?

Either way, we should probably find the reputable citations first, rather than start out with an agenda and look for citations to support it. Tom Harrison (talk) 14:38, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Actually, "Terrorism by the United States of America" is a descriptive sentence. "American terrorism" is a neologism, and is inaccurate.
It's not used to refer to the American continent, it's used to refer to the United States of America, which is NOT "America", as per the article by the same name. See use of the word American.
Looking at the articles like

Maybe this article should actually be at "Terrorism in the United States of America", really... Would be much more NPOV and in line with the other articles on similar subjects above.. --Chaosfeary 15:42, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

I offered such citations on the AfD. What did you think of those? BrandonYusufToropov 14:48, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
It looks like a good place to start. I think we should probably cite Walzer directly, if anyone has a copy (and time). I also think we should lean more toward quality than quantity, choosing a representative rather than an exhaustive list of examples, and then quoting at length from the examples we do use, to establish context, as
In Amman, Jordan, a member of the Jordanian branch of the Baath Party said he read the Web statement and appeared to consider it accurate.
"Izzat Ibrahim [al-Dour] is a warrior and a militant who graduated from the school of the leader, Saddam Hussein, and both are graduates from the school of the Baath," said lawyer Ziad al-Najdawi, who has ties to Saddam's family.
"He died while holding a gun and remained a leader for the resistance and liberation forces, rejecting American terrorism and Persian rule in Iraq."
That's especially important if the article is to be about the term, which seems to be your preference. I was going to cut and paste Hannity's and West's uses of the term too, but... I think we can quote a paragraph as fair use, right? Tom Harrison (talk) 15:07, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Citation

If Wounded Knee (for example) meets an objective definition of terrorism, let's say so and cite the sources. If someone says it was terrorism, let's say who says, and cite the source. Let's not say, "Some say..." Tom Harrison (talk) 15:28, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

On the burning of Samar, I would like to see the quote where this is called terrorism. Tom Harrison (talk) 17:15, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Likewise on My Lai, we need a cite to someone characterizing it as terrorism. I thought this would be pretty easy to find, but so far I've been unsucessful. Tom Harrison (talk) 17:26, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Hijacking of the "American terrorism" article

"American terrorism" is documented and cited as a widely used term. There was no consensus to delete, rename, or redirect that article. It is against Wikipedia policy to make up neologisms like Terrorism by United States of America. It is also against Wikipedia policy to delete, rename, and redirect articles without consensus. I will not give my "cooperation" to people who are violating Wikipedia policy.

This Terrorism by United States of America article is a joke. You renamed "American Terrorism" to your made-up neologism and then changed the definition, essentially deleting the original article. You can claim that you didn't delete it, but the effect is the same. Do you think people are so dense that they can't see what you're doing? People who ignore consensus, force their will on others, and justify their actions through misdirection, are the reason that Wikipedia fails to live up to its potential. --Peter McConaughey 15:39, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

As a disinterested party, I recommend listing this article on RFC. Johnleemk | Talk 15:41, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
That's a great idea. A neutral third-party would be the perfect person to add it. Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Politics --Peter McConaughey 17:03, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
Done (quite a while ago, I might add; I just forgot to note it here). Johnleemk | Talk 18:01, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Accuracy

Ok, so, the NPOV problems, I can understand why some peole would see that. but, the Accuracy problems.. where are these? --Irishpunktom\talk 15:42, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

American terrorism - Neologism

Actually, "Terrorism by the United States of America" is a descriptive sentence. "American terrorism" is a neologism, and is inaccurate.
It's not used to refer to the American continent, it's used to refer to the United States of America, which is NOT "America", as per the article by the same name. See use of the word American.

Looking at the articles like

Maybe this article should actually be at "Terrorism in the United States of America", really... Would be much more NPOV and in line with the other articles on similar subjects above.. --Chaosfeary 15:42, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Ah, well.

See, this is an article I can deal with. I still think it should be specifically marked as State terrorism, but that's another battle for another time. (It also desperately needs expanding, but we'll get to that.) Tom Lillis 16:34, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Presumably you acknowledge, then, that it is different from the article you opposed during the Afd?BrandonYusufToropov 19:14, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
Yes, it's remarkably different. It's well-formatted, well-written, well-cited, and not structured polemically. Those are the differences that I acknowledge.
On a side note, I will ask you to stop insinuating that I have some sort of pro-American agenda to push here. We've gone up and down and left and right over the notability of "American terrorism" as a term. There are myriad potential meanings for the term, which makes it difficult to determine whether or not it is worthwhile to discuss the term in and of itself. It was a bad faith article creation, designed to make a point about biased neologisms, and the material contained in the article was unsalvagably awful. On the other hand, if the desire is to create a genuine article to contain a discussion of acts by the United States which could be considered terroristic, would it not be to your advantage to broaden it beyond the particular application of the term "American terrorism?" It allows for a more general treatment of the issue without the taint of the initial bad faith article and the obvious contention that comes with it.
One more thing: at some point in the process, it was decided by someone (I can't tell who) that the existence of the "American terrorism" article would be justified by making it a branch of the main State terrorism article. It would seem that this is the path that is being followed. A discussion of Domestic terrorism in America has no place in an article serving that purpose. However, Domestic terrorism in America has as much a claim to the meaning of the term "American terrorism" as State terrorism.
No one is trying to "teach you a lesson for voting the wrong way." We are not out to get you. (Or at least I'm not.) Tom Lillis 20:05, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

There is and was no consensus to redirect American terrorism

And there is no defense for concocting Terrorism by United States of America as a fig-leaf to create another article.

I would like to propose that an admin move the article back to where it belongs. BrandonYusufToropov 19:14, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Since the American terrorism was created by a user looking to make a point, I don't see why that should be assumed to be the "real" title. There was no consensus to create the original article, so why should consensus be required to move it to this title? I agree with a suggestion made below to make "American terrorism" into a disambiguation page. At the very least, there should be discussion here before any more pages are moved. Carbonite | Talk 19:25, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
You're kidding, right? The fact that the AfD failed really means somebody gets to coin a neologism as the new title minutes after the vote concludes? Come on. BrandonYusufToropov 19:40, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
Huh? The AfD is virtually irrelevant at this point. Once it was decided that the article would not be deleted, it became an editorial issue. Was consensus reached to create the American terrorism article in the first place? Of course not. Perhaps this title isn't ideal, but I do think we should discuss any moves instead of just moving it back. Carbonite | Talk 19:50, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
  • I'm honestly not sure you realize how utterly arbitrary what you are maintaining here actually sounds.
  • Reality check -- You did nominate American terrorism for deletion, and you did lose that vote. So I'm not entirely sure why you're the best person to be calling the shots here, and if I were you I wouldn't spend too much time dwelling on the whole point thing, as it is getting a little surrealistic at this point given your clear conflict of interest here.
  • I think it would perhaps be a little more intellectually honest for you to propose something along the lines, of "All the people who didn't vote 'delete' simply didn't know the proper way to vote; it's important that we teach them a lesson."
  • In the meantime, I want you to acknowledge that the current title has no consensus whatsoever behind it. BrandonYusufToropov 20:02, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
BYT, I don't entirely understand your objections, maybe because of my own limited experience with the larger-scale organization of redirects and stuff. Suppose a vistior searches Wikipedia for 'American terrorism.' Right now they get Terrorism by United States of America. I would prefer that they get taken to a disambiguation page where they can choose from, roughly, terrorism by (US)Americans, Domestic terrorism in the US, and maybe 'American terrorism' as a political term. What do you want to happen? Tom Harrison (talk) 21:08, 30 November 2005 (UTC)


I'm recusing myself from discussion of these matters because I am seeking mediation with User:Carbonite. BrandonYusufToropov 21:22, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
I will not be entering in mediation with Brandon. See User talk:Improv for more detail. Carbonite | Talk 23:56, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Companion Article

As this seems to be moving in the right direction, I'm curious if anyone else would be interested in working with me on starting an article covering the other potential meaning of "American terrorism," that being Domestic terrorism in the United States. Anybody? Tom Lillis 16:44, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

That's part of what people mean when they use the term "American terrorism." It belongs in that article. --Peter McConaughey 17:01, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
Politics aside, the article you're proposing would get pretty damned big, pretty damned fast. I honestly don't understand why we don't just turn "American terrorism" into a disambiguation page that links to both Terrorism by United States of America and Domestic terrorism in the United States. Tom Lillis 17:30, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
Not a bad idea. It could also disambiguate American Terrorist, a book about Timothy McVeigh. Carbonite | Talk 17:38, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
Maybe after the disambiguation, the page could discuss use of the term in the media, if there's enough for that to stand on its own. Tom Harrison (talk) 17:43, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
I can see one problem with it: Wikipedia editors just made up the terms Terrorism by United States of America and Domestic terrorism in the United States, whereas American terrorism is a term in use. Is it our job to create terms, or to write articles covering existing definitions? --Peter McConaughey 17:45, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
Those aren't "made up" terms, they're titles of articles. This isn't a dictionary, it's an encyclopedia. Carbonite | Talk 17:49, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
I Google tested this up and down, then Lexis tested it, then JStor tested it. An archive of the discussion is preserved with the AfD debate. The point is this: the term is used, but it used to mean several dozen things. Writing an article which discusses every possible use of the term would be a.) an NPOV nightmare and b.) next to impossible. The potential meanings that I am proposing we focus on with a disambiguation page are a challenge enough, and honestly aren't the most common meanings. (Google-sift. You'll see that American terrorism seems to most commonly refer to terrorism in the Americas as a whole. I am not making this up.) I am not trying to hijack anything and I do not have an agenda to push. (And I am nobody's cohort, incidentally.) I simply want to lay out facts and the arguments relevant to those facts in a logical and comprehensive manner. Tom Lillis 18:13, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

NPOV tag.

It would be nice if the individual(s) who are responsible for the presence of the current NPOV tag would explain the reasoning for it. An argument over the redirect shouldn't be signified with the tag. (An argument over an unreasonable POV being inherent in the title might be, but I don't see how you can argue with the POV of the title.) What about the questions of factual accuracy?

In other news, I am going to let this cool for a bit and do some journal reading. (Yay, academia.) Tom Lillis 18:53, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

I believe the tag is a carry-over from the original version of the American Terrorism article. Since the rebuilding really just started a few hours ago, I think it might be best to keep the tag for a short while until the article becomes a bit more stable. Otherwise I think a revert war over which dispute tags are appropriate (if any) is rather likely. Once the article is expanded and slightly polished, discussions about compliance with NPOV will be much more productive. Carbonite | Talk 19:08, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

My Lai Massacre

I'm not advocating removing this as an act of terrorism, although I think it's more rightly classified as a war crime. I am, however, suggesting that the contributor of that item find a new source to justify it. The source they're using utterly contradicts the point they're trying to make. I suspect that they Googled "My Lai American terrorism" or something and just grabbed the first link. Read your sources, people! Tom Lillis 02:42, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

hehe - I went reading through a couple of sources, decided to add one and picked the wrong one! D'oh! I'll change it now! --Irishpunktom\talk 09:53, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
I couldn't find any reference to My Lai there, so I've changed the item to something more generic. I'm kind of surprised it's proving so difficult to find a reference to My Lai as terrorism. As soon as one turns up I'd like to include it. Tom Harrison (talk) 17:15, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

I have revised my request for mediation with User:Carbonite...

... concerning the totally non-consensus redirect away from American terrorism, which I continue to object to in the strongest possible terms. BrandonYusufToropov 11:32, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

There was and is no consensus whatsoever to redirect this article to Terrorism by United States of America

The choice to redirect this article is totally without consensus, and should be reversed. The article should reflect usage of the term "American terrorism," which is notable, and the title should reflect that. BrandonYusufToropov 14:07, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

But is there consensus to maintain it at American terrorism? There's no consensus for either side. So we just maintain the article wherever it is until consensus can be found. Perhaps being a little less belligerent and being more open to discussion would help develop some form of consensus. Johnleemk | Talk 14:25, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
Personally, I think we should take the article back to the point before it was hijacked, and discuss the options there. The principle should be: discussions and establishment of consensus BEFORE undertaking major actions.' Reality check: People smothered this article title like Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and they did it minutes after the AfD failed, ignoring all dissenting voices. So let's all start being open to discussion, reverse patently vandalous redirects], as well as redirects that make the page sound like it's about horror movies. Let's work together, build up a little good will by restoring the status quo ante hijackiatus, and not to any other point, and see what we can accomplish from there. BrandonYusufToropov 14:37, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
Surviving an AFD usually allows an article to stay. Moving without consensus minutes after an AFD is bad form and wrong. --Irishpunktom\talk 14:32, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
I just changed it back.. i tried american Terror first.. but that is very wrong and would refer to the terror felt by Americans, and perhaps by extension the (new?) sense of Paranoia that is apparent throughout the nation. American Terrorism is back to being the title.--Irishpunktom\talk 14:39, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
Not really. The AFD is a debate whether to delete the article or not. That is all. It is not a debate on whether the article should be moved or redirected or whatever. Quite often those options are brought up, but it is always up to the closing admin to decide unless there's massive consensus that the article should never have been on AFD in the first place and should have been redirected/kept. The article's survived the AFD. All that means is it's now an article like all others, without any threat of being deleted. If someone wants to move it or even remove the content and redirect it elsewhere, then the AFD cannot be cited for or against it. Johnleemk | Talk 15:02, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Personally, I think we should take the article back to the point before it was hijacked, and discuss the options there. The principle should be: discussions and establishment of consensus BEFORE undertaking major actions.' Reality check: People smothered this article title like Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and they did it minutes after the AfD failed, ignoring all dissenting voices. So let's all start being open to discussion, reverse patently vandalous redirects], as well as redirects that make the page sound like it's about horror movies. Let's work together, build up a little good will by restoring the status quo ante hijackiatus, and not to any other point, and see what we can accomplish from there. BrandonYusufToropov 14:37, 1 December 2005 (UTC)


There's no consensus whatsoever for "American Terror." Again -- talk first, then change the article. Pretty basic principle. BrandonYusufToropov 14:39, 1 December 2005 (UTC)


I would have to agree that, whatever the reasons, promptly redirecting an article so soon after surviving an AfD - even if legal and can be argued for in support - may be construed as bad faith by other editors. As an outsider who has no specific interest in an article like this one, I'm requesting that those editors in favor of redirecting this article (which I have not read and have no real interest in reading) please not do so for at least a few days cooling-off period as a sign of good faith until/unless things can/can't be worked out in discussion. Ramallite (talk) 14:49, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Three points:

  • Where is the talk page history for this page?
  • Where is the page edit history for American terrorism?
  • If we want to build up good will, we need to stop accusing people of hijacking the article, vandalism, and bad faith.

Tom Harrison (talk) 15:39, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

No cut and paste moves, please!

Please, cut and paste moves are bad. They corrupt the page history and make life harder for the copyright people. Special:movepage exists for a reason (unless you don't have access to it, in which case, there's also a reason for that). Also, these article names are BAAAADDD. Naming convention insists on having all initial letters (except the first one in the sentence) lower case unless it's a unique name (i.e. George Bush or Ketuanan Melayu, not All men are created equal). Johnleemk | Talk 15:21, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree. I think an admin should restore it to American terrorism to conform to WP style. BrandonYusufToropov 15:55, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
Agreed also, but it was impossible to move the page as it already existed as a manual Re-direct with a history. Also, American terrorism is locked.--Irishpunktom\talk 16:00, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
If you couldn't move it while preserving the edit history, you should not have moved it. I would like the record of my edits restored as soon as possible. Tom Harrison (talk) 16:06, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
You can get your edit history here[2] and talk history here[3].--Irishpunktom\talk 16:23, 1 December 2005 (UTC)


I see that significant edits by me and I think by User:Tomlillis are not reflected in the page edit history. I would like that edit history restored as soon as possible. Can someone suggest who I should ask about that? Tom Harrison (talk) 15:50, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Sources

The "it's not notable" claim really will not hold water. Here is just a representative sampling. BrandonYusufToropov 16:16, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Examples of published mainstream use of this term, in this context

War on Terrorism and the Terror of God

Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

by Lee Griffith - 2004 - 399 pages

Page 81 - ... Walzer's description of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as American terrorism cannot be dismissed as the rantings of a pacifist. ... [[4]]


Deliver Us from Evil: Defeating Terrorism, Despotism, and Liberalism

HarperCollins

by Sean Hannity - 2004 - 352 pages

Page 166 - ... militarist leaning' in the US media, and what he described as the history of American terrorism in Nicaragua, Chile, Costa Rica, Honduras, Argentina, ... [[5]]


Race Matters

Beacon Press

by Cornel West - 2001 - 144 pages

Page vii - 'The unique combination of American terrorism—Jim Crow and lynching—as well as American barbarism—slave trade and slave labor—bears witness to the ... [[6]]

Increasing use in news media too:[San Diego Tribune].

The addition of George Washington was incorrect because it included no citation to a reputable source characterizing his actions as terrorism. If there is one, put it in. Like the others, we'll say who says Washington was a terrorist, and quote him in context saying so. The point is that the page is about the use of the term, not the putative phenomonon. I don't think we need to restrict ourselves to recent use. It might be interesting to see how use of the term has evoloved over time. Tom Harrison (talk) 20:11, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

User:CltFn said, "If you are going to edit the American Terrorism page then please cite sources in the same way that you request them. The first para is a generalization which makes no sense . Which Government , which period who where? That is what I tried to correct in the intro I inserted. So please insert the details , Thanks --CltFn 04:45, 3 December 2005 (UTC)"

Which government? I guess the government of the USA; Do you want to limit it to the federal government? Expand it to include other governments?
Which period, who, and where? All periods, anyone, everywhere; Did you want to restrict it to the period since WWII? Limit it to the current administration? I don't mean to be obtuse; I'm afraid I'm missing your point. Tom Harrison (talk) 05:02, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
Well the point is which administration(s) is charged with the label of American Terrorism. Nixon ? Kennedy? Clinton ? All of them? When did this happen , every day over the past 200 years? Who was involved? Every American ? The hot dog stand vendor? The CIA?. Do you grok? --CltFn 05:10, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
Chomsky, and certainly West, seem to apply the label to all Administrations, and again their claims do pretty much seem to involve a continuing activity: slavery, lynchings, the United Fruit Company, etc. Every American? Well, Ward Churchill, who we haven't got around to quoting yet, seemed to condemn almost all, characterizing the workers in the WTC as 'little eichmanns.' We might be inclusive, or we might limit it to official and quasi-official actions of government. I guess it depends on the citations we find for who is using the term and what they are saying in context. I look forward to hearing what you think. I'm done for the evening. Best, Tom Harrison (talk) 05:24, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
Even Ward Churchill makes a distinction between the little eichmans and the every day americans. Chomsky is an american , is he also an american terrorist? Half the US fought the civil war to eradicate slavery , were they also american terrorists. Is Bill Gates an american terrorist? Bob Dylan ? Thomas Edison? Julia Roberts? Were the americans who fought for the civil rights movement also american terrorists?--CltFn 13:24, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
Of course none of them actually are terrorists; The question is, does anyone call them terrorists? If some Hollywood windbag says (I'm completely making this up as an example) "Dude, all of us, every one of us Americans is a terrorist! That's American terrorism!" then that would be a use of the term. If the Times picks it up, and Bill O'Reilly condemns it, then it's a notable use of the term. It's easy to make up contrived examples, harder to find notable and citable uses. What was it in the intro that you thought needed to be sourced? Tom Harrison (talk) 13:51, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
Well I wanted to be more specific in the intro as to the scope of the term , who specfically is accused of this , when did this occur , where. If you just say the US government , that does not work, there have been many different administrations in the US history and you need to specify which ones have allegedly perpetrated acts which have been labelled by critics as American Terrorism.--CltFn 15:51, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
It doesn't matter who did what, only who said what. The scope of the article is controlled by what uses we can find and cite. If someone wrote in 1923 that U.S. supression of the Philippine insurrection was terrorism, then we report that use of the term. If Upton Sinclair described the actions of the United Fruit Company as terrorism, then we quote him. If the Singapore Straits Times wrote in 1962 that President Kennedy's use of the Special Forces in Vietnam was terrorism, we report that. If a columnist for the Guardian (I'm making this up as an example) characterised the U.S.'s sale of helicopters to Israel over the past thirty years as terrorism, then we report that.
The article is about the term American terrorism. I don't see that we need to limit the article to only uses of the term that characterise actions by the Bush administration. Would it be useful to have sections, like maybe use of the term from 1945 to 2000 and use of the term since 9/11? Tom Harrison (talk) 16:21, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
Well your first paragraph of your reply above hits it right on the nail."If someone wrote in 1923 that U.S. supression of the Philippine insurrection was terrorism" . That is specific and that makes sense and that is what I advocate. Speficic and factual works fine.
No no need to complicate things , with sections etc...--CltFn 16:25, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
I don't think anyone needs to fear an accurate and cited description of the term American terrorism. In particular, if the President of Iran has described something as American terrorism, let's just quote him in enough context to make his meaning clear. Readers will either think his words conclusively demonstrate the fundamental hypocricy of the Great Satan, or readers will think the quote says more about President Ahmadinejad than about America. Let the reader draw his own conclusions from the facts, and let God defend the right. Tom Harrison (talk) 18:39, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

I think if the citations requested on the page aren't forthcoming in a week or so, then that content should be removed from the page. Anyone disagree? Tom Harrison (talk) 23:37, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Yet another undiscussed move of this page

Basic principle --- TALK FIRST. Please reverse this vandalism. BrandonYusufToropov 16:32, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

It's not vandalism, it's correcting an action that, as an unintended side effect, hid the edit history. I am concerned that repeatedly characterising people's work as vandalism will come to be seen as personal attacks. I can't think that's going to make it easier to write the good page that we all want. Tom Harrison (talk) 16:43, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

As a gesture of good faith, then, perhaps you could help to move the page to American terrorism, with a small "t" -- this is precisely what I have been asking User:Carbonite to do for some time now, to no avail, and it is a reasonable request as a starting point for future discussion of this article. BrandonYusufToropov 16:56, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
Tom, you have no authority to move pages without consensus of the editors involved. Please move this article back to "American terrorism" immediately. --Peter McConaughey 17:09, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
It wasn't Tom -- some admin with (honest) no knowledge of or interest in content objected to the cut-and-paste implications re:edit history. Question remains .... who will show good faith and put this back to the spot from which it was removed in bad faith immediately after the VfD? Tom, any thoughts? BrandonYusufToropov 17:26, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
Thank you, Brandon (or do you go by Jusuf?) for pointing out that I haven't moved the page. Regardless of how anything got wherever it is now, nothing should be moved for a while, and then only by someone experienced enough to untangle the mess of redirects. Certainly that's not me. I have no more or less authority to move pages than Peter or any other editor.
I don't think anyone is working in bad faith here. I suggested above that a reader typing in American terrorism should go to a disambiguation page from which they can choose, roughly, "by US" or "US domestic". The disambiguation page could then go on to discuss American terrorism as a term. This seems consistent with what most people were thinking at the AfD, and not too far from what we have now. How does that differ from what you would like to see? Tom Harrison (talk) 17:45, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
Only friends call me Yusuf -- I hope you will. :) Yes, what you outline above sounds like the most workable sequence. BrandonYusufToropov 17:48, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
Although I don't see why the disambig page has to have the content about the term. That seems kind of odd. It sounds like what you are describing is a sequence branching between "by US" and "US domestic" -- the "by US" thing should eventually lead to an article about the term. Perhaps some clarification on the "term" thing is in order. BrandonYusufToropov 18:53, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
For me, the term aspect doesn't need to be on the disambig page. Following a suggestion on the other(!) talk page, that could go on another page called whatever (term). Then the disambig page would be just disambig and nothing else. Others may have thoughts. Tom Harrison (talk) 19:49, 1 December 2005 (UTC)


Maybe we should just move this whole thing to American terrorism (term). And catch up on the rest -- main landing spot of American terrorism, i.e., that which would specify the available branches -- when admins unprotect stuff. BrandonYusufToropov 22:02, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

This article is about the term American terrorism, and the title needs to reflect that

It seems likely that admins are monitoring this talk page, and are familiar with its history. Surely we are all in agreement that we need some help moving the title to an appropriate landing place and away from American Terror. BrandonYusufToropov 18:45, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Not really. Trust me, I think most of the names this article has had suck, and I don't like this name (currently American Terror) very much either. However, it will not hurt the encyclopedia if the article has the wrong name for a few days while we settle this mess. We need to maintain the integrity of the page history (done, I think) and then decide on the article name. It doesn't matter what the article is named now; what matters is that we hurry things up so we can get consensus to decide on the article's name in the future. (Just because the article was first at American terrorism doesn't mean there is consensus for it, btw.) Johnleemk | Talk 19:35, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
Oh, and I think it sucks that the names of the talk page (Talk:American Terrorism) and article (American Terror) don't match, but I think it'll be better in the long run if we wait to sort this out. Don't you? Johnleemk | Talk 19:38, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
We should let everything settle for a few days. At this point any changes are likely to cause more confusion. As far as titles and pages, it's important to me that the content match the title, and that readers find what they're looking for. Tom Harrison (talk) 19:57, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
Well, we could instantly eliminate the confusion if an admin moved the page back to the title where it resided before it was redirected in bad faith (by a user who is now banned for 72 hours, I might add).
Frankly, no, I don't see any particular advantage in perpetuating that user's vandalism, because the further we get from the AfD, the more easy it's going to be for editors to claim that there is some legitimate concern about the validity or suitability of American terrorism, which is what we voted on. If there is such a concern, I'd very much like someone to explain it to me in direct terms.
Johnleemk, let me ask you this: If the present article is about the usage of the term "American terrorism" (and it is), and the vote to delete "American terrorism" failed (which it did), -- what do you think it should be called? BrandonYusufToropov 20:08, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
I don't really care what it's called. The point is the AfD debate was a debate to keep or delete the article. It cannot be cited for consensus on anything else. This is no special case; there have been many other cases where the article was kept but eventually redirected elsewhere. Despite much argument, the fact is, if there is consensus, you can't fight it. And I don't think many people will be easily swayed by the fact that this article is currently at "American Terrorism". It's quite clear the original title was American terrorism. I don't see any particular advantage in moving this page back there *now* because we might as well settle on consensus before another round of page moves. There is no consensus at all for what this article should be titled, and I'm sure we can all agree that before this page is moved yet again, we need consensus. Johnleemk | Talk 20:17, 1 December 2005 (UTC)


You might not care what it's called, but I care what your opinion is.
You've been following this closely.
You've read all the discussion.
We've got an article to look at.
I'd really appreciate your views on this matter.
I'm not asking about what you think the AfD can or can't be cited for.
I'm asking you -- again -- what you think the article should be called, which is something you said a few minutes ago was important to you. (Maintain the article history -- check -- and "then decide on the article name.")
That's where were at, now, John. Deciding on the article name.
What do you think it should be called? BrandonYusufToropov 20:26, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
It's important to me that we get consensus on what the article name should be. The result of consensus is not important to me. I don't care what it's called. I'm just here because I don't want people ignoring consensus and being a WP:DICK. I'm not here to decide consensus or anything of the sort. I didn't bother to revert anything, and I don't care what the article is called. I only care that everyone here doesn't act like a WP:DICK and that we can get consensus, whatever that consensus may decide on. Johnleemk | Talk 20:36, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
Is it being a WP:DICK to make a [redirect like this]?
If not, why not call the article America the beautiful or something?
If so, how come we still have to put up with the consequences of the work of vandals?
I'm quite serious here, John. How come the rules of etiquette don't seem to be enforced around here when they result in this article landing in limbo -- or staying there for unspecified periods of time? BrandonYusufToropov 20:43, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
The article is in limbo precisely because you and some others have been hurrying to restore the article instead of waiting for consensus to naturally develop. If you allow it to develop by trying to discuss this with those from the other POV, then the sooner we can get this article out of limbo. Please don't be so immediatist about this. Rome was not built in a day; if waiting a few days will give us consensus, I'll take consensus over more limbo and redirect warring. Johnleemk | Talk 23:59, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

John, the policy of Wikipedia is that articles are deleted only when there is consensus to do so. If an admin oversteps his authority and deletes an article without consensus, we restore the deleted article. We don't seek consensus about whether or not the article should be restored.

In a very real sense, this article has been deleted. The name was changed to something that was made up. The content was completely replaced by something that has nothing to do with the original term, and the actual term is redirected to the hijacked completely different article.

An AfD has already failed for this article. There is no consensus for deletion. Hijacking it, renaming it, redirecting it, and protecting the hijacking is nothing but a way around the decision of the AfD. --Peter McConaughey 21:24, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't understand in what sense the article has been deleted. If I type American Terrorism I get American Terror, a discussion of the use as a term, as discussed in the AfD. What is it you want instead? Tom Harrison (talk) 22:06, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
Speaking personally, I'd like to see an article title that doesn't sound like a Stephen King miniseries. BrandonYusufToropov 22:11, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
Uh, no. I believe I've already stated quite clearly that there's a precedent for all this — an AFD only indicates consensus (or a lack of it) to keep or delete an article. Once the AFD is closed, it's just a footnote. The page is to be treated like any other; if it's blanked, we revert. If people edit war on it, we protect it (or block them). If some guy wants to redirect it, it's redirected. If there's consensus to maintain that redirect, it's maintained, AFD be damned (you might want to review the various articles related to Ashlee Simpson and her debut album that got AFDed and kept but later redirected). If there's no consensus to do so, then it's undone. Let consensus develop, don't force it on people. Johnleemk | Talk 23:59, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
That is exactly the system we were following. There is not consensus to maintain the renaming or the redirecting, so it will be changed back to the way it was until we can get a consensus for change. Obviously there will never be consensus to change a term in common usage to one that an editor made up because original research, including the coining of a neologisms, is specifically against Wikipedia guidelines. --Peter McConaughey 00:57, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
You clearly stated redirect = delete. That is not so. And as I said, there is no consensus at all for the article's name, so I don't see what moving it back to the original title will achieve — it will not help develop consensus at all. Until you guys calm down and develop a consensus, I will not support a move to anywhere, regardless of my feelings on the article name. Johnleemk | Talk 05:41, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Impending Request for Arbitration

I have completely lost faith in everyone here to resolve this through consensus and conversation. Therefore, I'm going to file a Request for Arbitration within the next day or so.

Please understand that I am not doing this to get anyone banned or censured, and there will be no requests to that end. I just want an official ruling on what is going to further happen here.

Comments welcome before the filing, obviously. Tom Lillis 01:33, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

I would like to ask the administrators involved to do the right thing and not make the arbitration committee force it upon you. Regardless of how badly you want "American terrorism" to not exist, the fact remains that the term is in wide use, and there is no consensus to hijack, delete, rename, or redirect an article about it. --Peter McConaughey 01:44, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
Yes, of course. I don't want the term to exist. That's obviously it. It's not that your camp has decided use an article which is being used as a an extention of State terrorism#United States into a discussion of that term. It's not that someone searching for the (politically charged and broadly used, not widely used) term "American terrorism" isn't necessarily looking for a discussion of the neologism, but instead for State terrorism by the United States or Domestic terrorism in the United States. For the umpteenth damn time, Tom Harrison and I aren't trying to hijack your article. You're trying to hijack the search term. The creation of more specific articles using "American terrorism" as a disambiguation is not a "sweep under the rug" tactic. It's an attempt to broaden the conversation and make information which might relate to the term more readily and reasonably available. If you took one moment to think about this and actually read the proposals we're making, you'd see that we're not pushing POV; we're trying to include as much information as possible in an organized fashion. You seem to be trying to hijack the term so it can directly link to a polemic without any further consideration. Arbitration is inevitable. Tom Lillis 04:09, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
I have not seen much attempt at constructive discussion on this page. I won't stop you from going ahead with RFAr, but please, at least try. RFM is always there, too. Johnleemk | Talk 05:43, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
It's not a decision made lightly, I assure you. The whole thing is so toxic that I can't see a consensus developing. I am all for discussion as the optimal model for dispute resolution, but it's extremely discouraging when every alternate suggestion and all the reasoning behind those suggestions is explicitly and immediately dismissed as "trying to make the term going away" or derided as being part of some mass conspiracy. There is no possibility of good faith discussion when all attempts at discussion are arbitrarily ignored with a rather weak understanding of Wikipedia guidelines as justification. Look at the rest of this page and tell me that I'm unjustifiably concerned.

i dunno if i'm too late or too early, but my vote is for "terrorism by the united states of america." "american terrorism" examples cited are adjective-noun string in sentences, not labels of the subject. for example, you'd get more hits for the string "american presidents" but Presidents of the United States is more appropriate as a title. Appleby 07:10, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

  • It's entirely possible that this arbitration is the best way to resolve this. Either the term is notable or it's not -- if it is, it needs an article. I'd like to get some clear signals on this myself.
  • Moving the article around by means of vandalous redirects is a far less effective solution, and whether people feel like admitting it outright or not, that is precisely what has happened here.
  • Those who insist on defending such tactics or their outcomes are (you are quite correct) likely to make little progress toward dialogue with people who see such tactics as deeply inappropriate.
  • No one human being has yet stepped up to take responsibility for it, but it somehow became impossible for anyone but an admin to redirect this page back to the title that survived AfD. That's a problem, and somebody ought to talk about it directly. BrandonYusufToropov 13:48, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

There was an AfD, and no consensus to delete American terrorism. American terrorism remains a page like any other, if more contentious. The question is what content to put on that page. Right now that page is locked, and its content is a redirect to American Terror. American Terror discusses usage of the term "American terrorism."

Again, the question (at least in this forum) is not "Who hit John?" but "What goes on the page?" I see three possibilities, based on what I imagine a middle-school student might want information about if he searched for American terrorism: Terrorism in America by Americans; Terrorism by Americans against others; The term "American terrorism."

I see this as an ambiguity that could be mitigated by making American terrorism a disambiguation page. I would like to hear reasoned arguments for and against that suggestion. If we can't manage that without arbitration, I will support arbitration. But arbitration isn't anyone's goal; is it? Tom Harrison (talk) 14:52, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Arbitration is a failure state. It means that somebody is controlling this article and will not release it to be discussed from a neutral point of view. That somebody refuses to step forward and take responsibility for hijacking, renaming, redirecting, thereby essentially deleting the article on "American terrorism" without consensus. Everyone here is bringing up valuable points about content that can be discussed rationally as soon as the administrators involved release the article to its original state before it was hijacked. --Peter McConaughey 15:13, 2 December 2005 (UTC)


Hear, hear. BrandonYusufToropov 15:17, 2 December 2005 (UTC)


And let me add just one more thing. During AfD, much was made of this article's deficiency as an article. In fact, I think that's where most of the delete votes came from. The article, so the dominant argument went, sucked.
As indeed it did. I didn't touch the article then, because I wanted to make the case on AfD impartially. But to all those who are appealing to the "delete" votes there as a sign of a lack of consensus, let me ask you to address the reasons given for many of those votes:
  • Does the article now include original research?
  • Is the article now unsourced?
  • Does the article now fail to include both sides of the controversy?
The quality of the article is unquestionably improved. As John has mentioned several times now, the AfD debate is immaterial to the current discussion. Tom Harrison has very clearly explained my concerns in his immediate past contribution. I want to discuss what a person who searches for "American terrorism" is reasonably looking for, and what that search term should bring up. They are probably looking for, as Tom said, domestic terrorism in the United States or state terrorism by the United States government. This isn't to say that "American terrorism" as a term doesn't merit discussion. (I lost that argument, apparently, and have never contended otherwise.) It is to say that we should consider making "American terrorism" and "American terror" disambiguation and redirect pages, respectively. I don't see what's so POV-pushy about that. It makes good editorial sense.
The current article doesn't address domestic terror in the United States; it never can, because it is an extension, theoretically, of State terrorism#United States, and domestic terrorism is distinct from that. It lays equal claim to the search term "American terrorism," if not the political term. (It's debatable, but I don't think we need to debate it.)
What it comes down to, then, is this: do we want a list of aspects of a complete, encyclopedic discussion of the various concepts which can be considered "American terrorism" being properly laid out as a result when the term is searched for? Or do we want an encyclopedic discussion of the term itself? I think the concept trumps the term. Apparently, you think the term trumps the concept.
Again, I am not attempting to deny anyone the right to write a complete and thorough article on the term "American terrorism." It would belong at "American terrorism (term)," and it would be right there on the disambiguation page.
We've been suggesting this all along, but it doesn't seem like anyone is listening. A perfectly good idea (I think) is being trampled by a contentious argument about who has the right to do what and with what consensus and at what time. That's why I'm looking at arbitration: the discussion isn't happening amidst the bickering over who did what and the accusations of bias. Tom Lillis 17:30, 2 December 2005 (UTC)


Fine -- let's move the article to American terrorism (term). I suggested this yesterday, but it may have gotten lost in the shuffle. BrandonYusufToropov 19:37, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
I can accept moving American Terror to American terrorism (term). I think that advances things. That still leaves American terrorism available for disambiguation, which I think would be very useful. Tom Harrison (talk) 19:58, 2 December 2005 (UTC)


Sounds good to me. BrandonYusufToropov 20:00, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
I think that would be best. --Peter McConaughey 20:08, 2 December 2005 (UTC)


Done. I have no idea how to sort out the redirects, or how to make American terrorism a disambig page. BrandonYusufToropov 20:13, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, let's not be hasty. American terrorism is currently protected, and should probably stay that way until we've crystallized what's to be done with it. With some of the contention seemingly cleared up, I think we have to make sure we have the content we're attempting to deliver. My suggestion is this:
Retool the existing article to serve as a broader discussion of actions which have been labeled as American terror by notable persons. (I leave that to you folks, as I am biased as to what is and is not notable.) Place that in American terrorism (term).
Take the content of the existing article that falls within the scope laid out generally in State terrorism (which is going to be something of a difficult process), and put that into State terrorism by the United States. That will serve as the extension of of State terrorism#United States. This will take some discussion, probably.
I once again propose Domestic terrorism in the United States as a work in progress for the third option. Take a look at that article's talk page for where that might be going.
Thoughts? Tom Lillis 20:38, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
I agree in principle with the above, but note that we are now limited here to use of the term "American terrorism" itself. The Wounded Knee stuff may need to go elsewhere if we can't cite it as being referenced by some prominent person who uses the words "American terrorism" in that order. BrandonYusufToropov 20:43, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

I believe American terrorism (term) is the right and the most representative title for this article. The term Terrorism is controversial in itself, let alone American Terrorism. We are experiencing the same paradigm in Islamofascism. They are all terms and I am feeling sorry for the Wikipedia community for delving so hard to make a point. We rely on Google and forget that the google wikipedians use at this version is not representative at all! Why? Simple reason, Terrorism is called another term in another city! Let's not promote false propaganda based on making a point. I have to add a very essential note. If we are giving our opinions here in good faith, than please, let's do the same with Islamofascism. Call me an apologist but no, for me I am just applying the logic I've learned in this life. -- Cheers -- Svest 20:17, 2 December 2005 (UTC)  Wiki me up™

Now that the page has moved to a location which seems to be acceptable to most people, I've moved this talk page to that location too. At the same time, I've restored the history for this talk page of the edits before December 1, about 15:00 UTC. These edits were temporarily lost because of a cut&paste move. The edit history close to that time may be a bit confused. Eugene van der Pijll 20:40, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Article structure

The section Groups and their members that use the term in the media is unnecessary, potentially misleading, and at present unsupported by citations. If we have a quote from Hugo Chavez, let's include it below with the others. If we don't, he doesn't belong in the article anyway. I can't see that his political affiliation has any bearing on anything in this article, unless as background to explain a quote when somebody finds one. Likewise for the others, except Chomsky and Vidal who are already listed. That said, I'm going to leave things alone for a while and give people time to think about what's there now. Tom Harrison (talk) 21:04, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

OK Tom . I am surprised you have any doubt about Chavez's statement since he makes statements to that effect on a frequent basis to the media. The groups listed are just some of a list of ideological tribes that make up the core of the anti american alliances which go around accusing the United States of terrorism, imperialism, hegemony , exploitation and Islamophobia. Where they can't shoot bullets they throw stones and when they can't do that they throw words.--CltFn 21:36, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
I think it is better to start looking for quotes related to the list. Tom and CltFn, do the people in list (except Chomsky) use the term explicitly or not? If not than the list should not exist. If yes, than we have to start looking for the quotes.  Wiki me up™
I agree with Tom, it's unnecessary and misleading. BYT 22:45, 3 December 2005 (UTC)


Most informative things first

The first line of this article says "American terrorism is a controversial political neologism." I hardly think that is the most informative thing about American terrorism. Wikipedia editors report how a term is used. In every country but the United Kingdom/States, terrorism refers to the creation of terror, either through "a system of coercive intimidation" or by trying "to awaken or spread a feeling of terror or alarm" (OED). American terrorism is simply the creation of terror by the United States of America (through "a system of coercive intimidation" or by trying "to awaken or spread a feeling of terror or alarm" in its own people). Ask pretty much any person outside of the United Kingdom/States, and they'll explain something along those lines as the definition of "American terrorism." That's a lot more informative than making people read truisms about politics being controversial and types of grammar. --Peter McConaughey 23:09, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

We've determined, by consensus, that the article about the use of the term, and I think we have an obligation to follow through on that. Reporting on the phenomenon as though it were an objectively identifiable process, like photosynthesis or something, is outside the scope of this article, I think. That doesn't mean it shouldn't be taken up somewhere else, though, if you can get consensus, but I have a feeling connecting any nation's unique brand of terrorism to a specific article would be a difficult sell. BYT 14:55, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

The intro

CltFn wrote in his edit summary, The intro you keep reinserting is ambiguous, are you doing this on purpose?

CltFn, only in the same sense you are; that is, we're trying to write a good article. Some of my concern about the intro is this part: to negatively characterize the conduct of various officials of influence in specific administrations of the United States government or their proxy agents during specific military or foreign campaigns. To me, that does not describe what either Chomsky or West are saying. Further down the page, we write:

West described decades of official tolerance of lynching and crimes of violence against blacks as "American terrorism."

Now I think decades of tolerance by officials more acurately describes West's position, but leave that for now. What West is alleging is not limited to specific administrations, or to specific campaigns, or even to specific officials. He's alleging a pattern of institutional racism that he says constitutes American terrorism. (I'm not saying that, I'm just saying Dr. West is saying that.)

The intro above is too narrow to accomodate what West is saying. I think our description of what the term means has to be driven by documented uses of the term. We find uses of the term, see what those uses have in common, and use the intro to build a box to hold what we find. I look forward to hearing the other editors' thoughts. Tom Harrison (talk) 00:04, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Tom, I think you're right on target here. Also agree with the reformulation of the West passage that you suggest. BYT 01:49, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
Actually if you read the quotes you googled , they all provide a specific scope and context for the label of "American Terrorism" . The context defines specific participants at specific historical time periods in specific place. The intro should reflect the specificity of the topic rather than a blurred generalization.
Your inclusion of Cornel West's hyperbolic exploitation of a politically charged phrase may not be applicable to this article because although the issues he raises are social ills they would hardly qualify as American Terrorism in the sense as it is applied to the US government. To fail to make this distinction will eventually lead to inserting every instance of domestic violence, or violent conflicts between human beings that take place in the United States under the topic of this page as they all could be called American Terrorism too. --CltFn 03:16, 5 December 2005 (UTC)


Locked?

Why is American terrorism still locked? --Striver 03:12, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Do we agree that it should be a disambiguation page? With links to American terrorism (term), Domestic terrorism in the United States, and what else? Tom Harrison (talk) 03:42, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
The Timothy McVeigh book. --Peter McConaughey 14:03, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Yes, the book too; I expect the controversial part will be American terrorism as acts of terrorism carried out by the US government. If someone wants to put up such a page, I'd like to insulate the disambiguation page American terrorism from the inevitable controversy that will accompany, say, US state-sponsored terrorism. Maybe we could agree to not link this from the dab page until US state-sponsored terrorism has settled down. Or we could put up the disambiguation page with a link to US state-sponsored terrorism (or whatever it's called) and then lock down the dab page. I just would like to avoid another festival of redirects and deletions, and confine the controversy to the controvesial page. Tom Harrison (talk) 15:30, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
A potential problem with separating the terms is that some of them are interrelated. For instance, socio-political analysts have argued that our terrorism of other countries wouldn't be possible without terrorism of our own people. Because the two definitions rely on each other, changing or deleting something in one article could cause problems in links and references. --Peter McConaughey 16:16, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
How do you think we might proceed to deal with that? Tom Harrison (talk) 16:22, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Whenever I'm faced with such an issue, I ask myself, "How would Webster solve that problem?"
Webster reconciled contradictory meanings of terms, from people with roots all over Europe, into one complete language. The "complete" part is the important thing here. It means that if a concept exists, there is also a term to describe it. Today, our language is in disarray again. I could give you a dozen concepts that lack terms to describe them off the top of my head. One of them is "terrorism." As I'm sure you realize, when I say "terrorism," that doesn't mean anything. I didn't convey any information to you, and that's my point.
"Terrorism" used to mean something. It used to convey a specific idea. It doesn't any more, but the concept behind terrorism still exists. It just doesn't have a term to describe it. As a result, we can't describe anything that contains the word terrorism in more than pejorative or ambiguous terms. Look at this article, for example: "American terrorism is a controversial political neologism." Wow! That really gets to the heart of the matter, doesn't it?
There is no reason to create five different articles for something that can be summed up in one sentence if we were honest with ourselves: "American terrorism is a term used to describe alleged systems of terror created for the purpose of intimidation and political gain by the United States of America." --Peter McConaughey 16:59, 7 December 2005 (UTC)


With all respect, Peter, that is fraught with POV problems, akin to writing
Democracy is a term used to describe a system alleged to permit entrenched corporate elites to maintain control over societies by means of sham elections.
It's just inherently biased, in my view, and as a practical matter, we can't dismiss the fact that such an approach is likely to attract major edit wars. Such an article would be unstable, and rightly so. Why bother? You don't seriously maintain such an entry would be accepted by mainstream political scientists as a responsible summary of current use of the term, do you? BYT 17:32, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
If I thought that the definition would be accepted in the article, I would have put it there. My point is that the concept of "systems of terror created for the purpose of intimidation and political gain" exists, whether we have a term to describe it or not. In order to communicate efficiently, we need to have a term for every concept. The reason why it takes five articles to describe such a simple concept is that we don't really want to describe it. We want to bury the concept in mountains of ambiguous, pejorative terms, so we can pretend it doesn't exist. "The United States is not a terrorist nation!" So says President Bush. In order to prove him right, all we have to do is perform a juggling act to keep everything in the air.
You guys have fun with your juggling act. I'm going to Aspen for the weekend. --Peter McConaughey 17:48, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Enjoy your week-end in Colorado Tom! I don't care about the media! I don't care about if mamma would think I slept outside! American Terrorism is a term in terms of terrorizing people! America doesn't do that! It simply terrorize you by Google and of course by Washington Post and its caravan. Remember the Al Jazeera bombing memo?! Simple as that! I'll be asking you (after your safe return from the mountains) if anything changed! End of story, This was not an act of terrorism, but it was an act of WAR -- George W. Bush -- Cheers Svest 00:14, 8 December 2005 (UTC)  Wiki me up™
I disagree with your statement that "America doesn't do that." A terrorist is someone who uses terror as a weapon. The object of that terror can be something that the terrorist did, or it can be an act perpetrated by another person but used to create a system of terror to achieve a political goal. Consider 9/11, for instance. There was no coercion associated with it. Nobody made demands. Nobody said that they would blow up more buildings unless we did something. In fact, the Pentagon was obviously a military objective, and anyone following the protests of globalization would know that the trade towers were a military objective as well. We only got the idea that we were supposed to feel terrorized when President Bush used the attack as a springboard for his USA PATRIOT Act, War on Terrorism, and 2004 reelection campaign.
Compare that with some real terrorism, and you can see the difference: the U.N. estimates that 1.8 million people died as a direct result of our sanctions in Iraq during the '90s. You might argue that they deserved it, but that doesn't change the fact that we used the sanctions as a means of coercion. Whether or not a half-million Iraqi children deserved to die from malnutrition and preventable disease as a direct result of our sanctions, the fact remains that we employed systems of terror as a means of intimidation in Iraq during the 1990s. Unlike the 9/11 attacks, we made demands and threatened more sanctions, and consequently more lingering deaths of their children, if they didn't comply. While we may be insolated from the horror associated with our actions here in the United States, most of the rest of the world is not. It shouldn't be too hard to figure out why they attack us once take a hard look at what they see. --Peter McConaughey 02:20, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Re: C's recent edits. To what extent ...

... are terms like "Anti-American" and "Leftist" NPOV? Are they definable? Are they encyclopedic? Do they belong here? BYT 14:47, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

I do not think they belong here, for a few reasons. I wrote to Cltfn about it, and I look forward to hearing his thoughts. Tom Harrison (talk) 15:00, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
Cltfn, it is odd that you are editing this page without responding to queries on the talk page that are addressed specifically to your work.
Are terms like "Anti-American" and "Leftist" NPOV? Are they definable? Are they encyclopedic? Do they belong here? BYT 18:47, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
As much as "American Terrorism" are they not? I say lets get is all out in the open , no holds barred unvarnished truth. Can you handle that?--CltFn 21:45, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
CltFn, have you had a chnace to consider the comment I left on your talk page? Any thoughts on the approach I suggested? Tom Harrison (talk) 22:30, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
Yes I read the comment , and you have a good point. I do think however that we ought to call spades spades and cut through the PC fog that has spread through many wikipedia articles.
People like Chomsky should be able to be freely characterized by his position on the political spectrum in the same way that Chavez and the president of Iran should. These people themselves have little objection to being labelled for what they stand for. Who would we be fooling by avoiding to state the obvious ?
It is unfortunate that many wikipedia articles are hard to read because of all the double-talk and PC filtering that has been applied to them. In the end the reader will not be fooled and will only look elsewhere for their information. I believe in presenting the unvarnished facts , no matter how distateful to anyone. --CltFn 05:21, 11 December 2005 (UTC)


  • Re: "I believe in presenting the unvarnished facts, no matter how distasteful to anyone."
  • Noble principle. Presumably that would include a full accounting of the use of white phosphorous against civilian populations in Iraq? Just checking. BYT 16:14, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Proposed disambig page

For information on American terrorism see:

Tom Harrison (talk) 16:29, 9 December 2005 (UTC)


This looks good to me. BYT 18:32, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
I have requested the page be unprotected. Tom Harrison (talk) 17:18, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

also add Foreigh terrorism by the United States --Striver 18:59, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Striver -- if you think that's an important article, could I ask you to first WP:Be bold and create a draft of it? My sense is that it's unlikely to survive calls for its deletion, but that's only one man's view. BYT 19:06, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

American terrorism as a disambiguation page is up. Tom Harrison (talk) 01:12, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Merge

I strongly oppose that merge, this article suvived a VFD, merging is yet another bad faith atempt to geting rid of this article. --Striver 22:41, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

I do not think the editor who proposed the merge is acting in bad faith. I think his intent might be to merge that article in here. Still, I also oppose the merger. This page is about the term American terrorism, as a term. Substantive allegations or demonstrated cases of American terrorism should go elsewhere. Tom Harrison (talk) 23:34, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

I, too, oppose this merge. Point of the article is the usage of the term. BYT 13:25, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Oppose they are different topics! Sethie 00:11, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

U.S. officials are not to blame for the war crimes committed by this country. The United States is a government of the people. I take full responsibility for the actions of my representatives. It's ludicrous to assert that a few fogeys in Washington can control 290 million armed civilians. If the United States commits war crimes, we, the citizens of the United States of America, are the criminals. --Peter McConaughey 00:22, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

There is a good reason against merging, for a discussion of a term is certainly different from a discussion about a subject. In any case, from the above evidence there is sufficient reason for an article about the term "American terrorism". Thus:

1. Don't merge

2. In case of merging, the title can't be anything else but "American terrorism" Harald88 00:33, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Let's simply list what can be considered US terrorism

There should be a list of events that certain groups consider US terrorism:

- US conquer of Hawaii and the Philippines, where the most infamous massive atrocities against people and their islamic religion was committed and many villages were burned by the soldiers. Muslims were executed and their bodies were dropped into pools of pig blood, which made them unsuitable for Allah's paradise due to ritual dirt.

  • There were Muslims in Hawaii?


- Atrocities during Mexico land grabs

  • Is an atrocity necessarily an act of terrorism?


- There was a belgian town which totally razed by B-26 carpet bombers in WWII, because the US Army was too afraid to go in on foot and siege it due to very well built nazi defences. Entire civilian population of the city was killed in the aerial bombing.


- The firebombing of Drezden and Tokyo in early 1945 (2 x 130k dead)

  • Does the number dead have necessarily have anything to do with whether or not something is terrorism?


- Hirosima and Nagasaki in August 1945 (250k and 110k dead)

  • Dead people can't be terrorized. Who was terrorized here? Within the context of "terrorism," what was the purpose of these attacks?


- Agent Orange/White/Blue chemical-genetical weapons use in Vietnam (1 million vietnamese dead and frequent birth deformations even today)

  • Was the primary purpose of this to terrorize someone into submission, or as a direct attack against an enemy?


- Napalm in Vietnam (also see the famous little girl photo)

  • By the time this photo was taken, nobody in the United States through the Vietnamese would "give up" if we applied enough pressure. The famous little girl was collateral damage from a direct military attack.


- Shelling of 12 lebanese coastal villages by USN BB New Jersey, killing 5000 kids, women, elderly (all men were away labouring in the cities during the workdays)

  • What was the motivation for this attack? What purpose did it serve? What were the goals?


- Downing of the iranian A300 pilgrim plane. Iran considers this terrorism, since the Vincennes was actively engaged in artillery combat against iranian swiftboats that patrolled iranian territorial waters during the time it fired the SAM missile at the A300.

  • Were we trying to make the Iranian people afraid of flying? Even if we believe the act was deliberate, what kind of terror were we trying to promote in the Iranian people by shooting down their aircraft?


- CIA role in assasination of foreign politicians. Salvador Allende is a prime example.

  • Are we trying to make them terrified of becoming politicians, or is this just another example of a direct attack against someone we don't like?


- US gave support of billions of dollars for the internationally excommunicated apartheid south african regime, money was was proxied via Israel. This money allowed the apartheid regime to maintain its racist black slavery system for four decades and to invade Angola and kill tens of thousands.

  • What was our motive for doing this within the context of "terrorism?"


- Sabotage of a major soviet natural gas pipeline during the 1980's, with a very big explosion.

  • Did we do this with the motive of terrorizing Soviets? Did we hope that they would submit themselves to our authority is we blew up their pipeline?


- Continued monetary and military support for Israel, which does everything US does not dare, like chasing away 3 million arabs, who had a continuous 1500 year history of living in the same place, dropping US made cluster bombs on villages, bulldozing arab houses by the hundreds to change the ethnical standing of the Holy Land area, helicopter assasinations, land grab fences, invading and occupying foreign territory and banning interracial marriage!

  • Can we separate the violence and the atrocities from the terrorism here, or are we just throwing it all against the wall to see what sticks? The purpose of this article is to identify items that fall specifically into the category of "American terrorism," not to list every bad thing that the United States has ever done.


- Continued US air strikes against civilian groups in Iraq and Afghanistan, which are later baged as "collateral damage" and forgotten.

  • Trying to hide or "forget" collateral damage defeats the purpose of terrorism, which requires the spreading of terror.


Unless we want this article to become a catch-all for grievances against the United States, I think we need to define constraints for what would fit into this definition. I propose that no method of conventional warfare be considered "American terrorism." If the primary function of an attack is to reduce the military capability of the other team, the main purpose couldn't also be to spread terror. Furthermore, terrorism requires some sort of at least implied coercion. If we express our examples of American terrorism in terms of how they meet these two minimum requirements, unconventional warfare and coercion, we will have a stronger and much more useful article. --Peter McConaughey 14:27, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree. Most of these initial examples are not only POV, but not even terrorism de facto. We must be very careful about this. JG of Borg 14:56, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Neither are they examples of usage of the term American terrorism. If Gore Vidal said tomorrow that the US government, by sabotaging the Latvain natural gas infrastructure, had commited an act of terrorism, then that would be a use of the term, and we could include it here. Tom Harrison (talk) 15:18, 14 December 2005 (UTC)


  • Strongly agree. Think of it this way. If someone prominent tried to make the case that Zionist Occupation Government was a real entity, an identificable group actually exerting influence over, or in charge of, US policy, we could quote that person and include the reference to the term "Zionist Occupation Government" in the Zionist Occupation Government article.
  • It would be POV, however, to suggest that WP holds as an objective fact that the ZOG a) exists or b) controls US policy.
  • Also, prominent people who argue in favor of any implied ZOG-like phenomenon or process, without being on the record as having actually said things like "Zionist," would not, in my view, belong in the text.
  • What we as editors personally do or don't consider to be evidence of ZOG (or American terrorism) seems well outside of the scope of what this article is about. BYT 15:43, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
When combining two words into a phrase, the phrase can take on an additional meaning, but the original two words do not lose theirs. --Peter McConaughey 19:29, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

No, we wont

Someone wrote:

Let's simply list what can be considered US terrorism

It is not our job in this particular article to decide what is or is not factual terrorism. We are only going to disscuss how the term is used. If it is used to describe eating lollipops by a notable source, then we will add:

  • American terrorism can also refer to eating lollipops.

--Striver 15:25, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

All words have both prescriptive and descriptive meanings. The prescriptive meaning usually originates in the elements from which the word is derived. Some people consider the prescriptive definition to be the only true definition, and for other usages to be "incorrect." Here at Wikipedia, however, we try to incorporate common usage as well (when that usage isn't the result of a nation-centric propaganda campaign or some other one-sided POV).
Less than 5% of the world's population adopted President Bush's definition of terrorism. A disproportionately large percentage of the editors at Wikipedia belong to that 5%, but that doesn't give us the right or the capability of forcing our definition on the rest of the world. For an overwhelming percentage of people on this planet, terrorism still means: terror + ism. --Peter McConaughey 19:24, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
Was that that just some friendly information, or are you contesting that this page is about the use of the term and not what it means? --Striver 00:49, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
It is about use, but not exclusively about use. Use by Western Society is only one of many filters through which a successful definition must pass. --Peter McConaughey 23:26, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Guys!!! Isn't this an article about the usage of the term?  PLEASE CORRECT ME IF I AM WRONG!™ -- Cheers Svest 00:59, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

That was the best I could do to explain the problem in a single paragraph. Let me try expanding a bit:
The purpose of language is to convey information. A language is only as strong as the definitions of its terms. An effective term conveys a distinct packet of information that is the same in the mind of the sender as it is in the mind of the receiver. Dictionaries, encyclopedias, and our most popular books create this essential equality between what we are saying and what the other person hears. When that bond is broken and a civilization loses its ability to communicate and combine concepts, it will surely fail.
Linguists say that Wikipedians cannot understand this concept, that we will confuse words and meanings to the point that saying something distinct will mean something else in the mind of the person hearing the term, or will be so ambiguous that it doesn't mean anything. Some people say that Wikipedia will bring the English language to its knees because we will create official alternate meanings out of every notable "misuse" of a term, effectively eliminating the power of that term to convey a distinct packet of information.
Members of the cabal keep tightening controls to keep our definitions from getting watered down, but that only serves to make the articles subject to their personal bias. You could argue that all resources like dictionaries are subject to the POV of their authors, but I have read Webster, and I can assure you that the cabal is no Webster. Top-down control is not going to make Wikipedia a superior resource. Instead, Wikipedia uses a kind of Darwinism to come up with its best articles. The strongest and most fit definition wins. In a society of equals, a Wikipedia edit can survive if it meets two essential qualifications: 1) it must receive more support than any other edit, and 2) it must be within the tolerance level of all contributing editors. The obvious question follows, what do we do when these two necessities conflict? The answer is that we work it out - we allow the evolution of these articles to take its natural course. Peer based evolution of an article can work through cooperation or confrontation, but it can never work through control. Top-down control of content eliminates the multi-faceted filtering process that would normally allow a term to convey distinct and universally agreeable information.
Therefore, it befalls us, a groups of peer editors, to ultimately save or destroy the linguistic foundation of our society. Wikipedia is becoming the largest and most googled resource on the planet. How can the relatively uneducated masses of Wikipedia surpass the great linguists of the Oxford English Dictionary, Webster's Dictionary and Britannica? We have one thing going for us that too few people understand. In a system of equals, the content of an article will always have the unanimous consent of all contributing editors in order to survive. With the exception of the cabal, Wikipedia is organized to naturally enable the best articles to rise to the top on two criteria: 1) it must be popular, in both number of people and how passionately people feel about it, and 2) the narrative voice of the article must not offend even a single editor with something that the editor considers to be a biased presentation of the facts or a disputed uncited conclusion. This sets a standard as high as any other resource, and gives us more power to reach that standard. Every one of us knows a few things that will keep our language from degrading, and a few things that will make it stronger. When we combine the knowledge, experience, and disparate POV of the thousands of people who view each article, and who are also free to edit it, and who must ultimately consent to the content in order for the article to be stable, our quality-control process is many times more powerful than what any other single person or small body of people can accomplish. To find the definition that conveys the most distinct and universally recognized packet of information for each term, the article will go through your filter of common usage, my filter of prescription based on elements, someone else's filter of making sure that every possible concept has a distinct term (which might mean combining or dividing this article), and dozens of other refinements that we haven't even though about. None of these purifiers reduce the effectiveness of the others, nor do they keep a final result from happening. We all have the same goal of making a strong article that conveys information and that everyone can live with, and we will all do whatever it takes to reach that goal. --Peter McConaughey 23:20, 15 December 2005 (UTC)


That was like asking where Mcdonalds is, and being told the entire life of the guy that built it... --Striver 02:11, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

I could say the same thing in German in about three sentences, and everyone would understand me, because that language has precise terms that encompass the fundamental concepts. If you think trying to understand a complex problem in American English is frustrating, imagine how it is for someone trying to convey it.
My point is that, as editors of Wikipedia, we have a chance to reverse the trend. English can be a strong language again. We can provide a distinct meaning for every term, and a distinct term for every concept. --Peter McConaughey 03:08, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Bro, you are meaning that we shold do something. How ís that not original research? --Striver 03:51, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Tango in the Caballroom

It's interesting watching the Cabal work. First they try to delete the article. Then they try to redirect it to a title that doesn't mean anything. After that, they try to merge it with an unrelated article. If all else fails, they change the content of the article to mean absolutely nothing.

Imagine that you just paid $1600 for a nice set of Britannica encyclopedia books. You want to impress your dinner guests, so you flip open to a random definition that you've never heard. You announce to your friends that your slick new encyclopedia will teach you enough about your random term that you will be able to use it definitively in a sentence. After all, isn't that what encyclopedias are for? The article that you picked says this:

_________ is a controversial political neologism. It is meant to negatively characterize a variety of crimes allegedly perpetrated by the government of the USA, by its citizens, or proxy agents.

Some of the controversy associated with the term has to do with disputes over the actual definition of terrorism, and some with the substance of the allegations. The term's usage (and controversy) appears to have increased in parallel with media coverage of terrorism since the September 11, 2001 attacks and the Bush administration's proclamation of a War on Terrorism, but its usage to refer to lynching dates back to at least 1996.

Notable groups and individuals that use the term in the media
Academics
Noam Chomsky
Cornel West
Heads of State
Hugo ChavezCitation needed
Mahmoud AhmadinejadCitation needed
Critics of the the War on Terror
Howard ZinnCitation needed
Gore Vidal

Disputes over the use of the term
In any discussion of the proper usage of the term terrorism, identifying a common definition is a difficult and contentious matter. One 1988 study by the US Army (PDF) found that over 100 definitions of the word terrorism have been used. That diversity of opinion has not, however, prevented intellectuals such as Cornell West and Noam Chomsky from using the term _________ or associating themselves with it prominently in recent years.

Given the above definition, would you be able to use ________ definitely in a sentence? Or, would you be the laughing stock of your dinner party? Would you feel like chastising your Britannica salesman quite sternly? If so, simply replace the $1600 with your time and effort, and the Britannica salesman with the Cabal. --Peter McConaughey 03:49, 16 December 2005 (UTC)


People have been mud-wrestling over what terrorism "means" for years now on WP. Any definitive statement/endorsement by WP inevitably leads to edit wars and makes the article worse. The term is not used precisely or carefully in common discourse (or in much of the academic discourse for that matter), and we should acknowledge that. BYT 13:23, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
We must be careful to keep the article NPOV, but we cannot lose site of the fact that the article only exists to enable the term to convey information. Both objectives are possible at the same time. The current article achieves only one of those objectives: to be stated from a neutral point of view. It does not enable the term to convey information. Therefore, the article has no reason to exist, which is exactly the point the Cabal is trying to establish before creating another AfD. --Peter McConaughey 16:17, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
Not sure I agree on this. Seems to me the article would be much more likely to be deleted if it said, in essence, "Terrorism means one and only one thing, X, and it is a matter beyond dispute that the United States is engaging in X." That line has not been very productive in the past, primarily because it's seen (and rightly, I think) as a propagandistic, rather than an encyclopedic, approach to a topic. BYT 16:30, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
A single definition for a term can only be used as propaganda if it is pejorative. Politicians generally prefer multiple definitions, because that gives them the ability to define the term as whatever they want, and change the definition to serve their purpose of the moment.
When we define something as an "umbrella term" or as a "negatively characterizing" "controversial political neologism," we give politicians all the ammo they need. We also make it impossible to talk about the real issues. --Peter McConaughey 17:57, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Yeah... I agree with you in that sense. I have other things in my hand, but eventualy i will go to this article and add that this scholar accuses America for this: [7]. I aim to get closer to this [8] eventualy. --Striver 03:57, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Totally Disputed?

So are the neutrality and factual accuracy of this page disputed? If not, maybe we could remove the tag. Tom Harrison (talk) 15:26, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

I think we should remove this and place a "controversial" template on the talk page. BYT 14:03, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
I agree. Tom Harrison (talk) 20:07, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
Seconded --Peter McConaughey 22:53, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

POV

Every commentator listed as supporting "American terrorism" is a left wing commentator, and widely known to be on the fringe and/or extremist. You have Noam Chomsky who comments against America and American imperialism and is on the fringe left. Cornel West who is a communist and black militant. Hugo Chavez who is a communist in his own nation opposed to the United States for political gain. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who has called the Holocaust a 'myth' and is president of one of the United State's oldest enemies. Gore Vidal has called the Oklohoma City bombings the result of the FBI for stricter terror laws. Finally there is Howard Zinn a Marxist-historian who has written a revisionist history of the United States.

Where is one, just one, mainstream or widely accepted or respected academic or leader who can lay claim against the United States or believes in "American Terrorism"? This page is pure POV and deserves to be deleted or merged with another topic. However, if a reasonable source can be found that is reputable and has consensus support, at least in the world at large not necessairly wikipedia, then this article will have merit, but until then this is just a polemic of anti-Americanism User:63.161.169.67

I don't think you've accurately described the page content -- the 1996 ref that constitutes the first footnote, for instance, is not "widely known to be on the fringe and/or extremist."
Secondly, the fact that someone is well known for expressing specific political viewpoints makes him or her more notable, not less so. What you're saying, apparently, is that no leftist commentator is worthy of attention. Not sure I agree. By the way, Sean Hannity has used the term in a published work. BYT 18:41, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
I see that someone has read the page, seen Hugo Chavez, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Howard Zinn, and has been misled. We have no citations for those men using the term, and I'm removing their names. When someone finds a cited reference, we can put them back. Tom Harrison (talk) 18:48, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
Agreed. BYT 19:47, 21 December 2005 (UTC)!

Cleanup

I'm removing the cleanup tag. Feel free to put it back if anyone thinks it is still needed. Tom Harrison (talk) 03:01, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Terrorism -- In America and from Americans

It's probably the same in most nations, although the United States does have ICBMs as a patent advantage. Military troop members are the most prevalent terrorists when constituents are non-cooperative or pre-occupied outside the national security realm of active influence.

Terrorist techniques include the ingestion of dairy products which cause abdominal distress, then a targeting of individual constituents who have been observed to be engaged in questionable conduct -- most prevalent, probably, near oil refineries and other might-become-volatile manufacturing sites. 06:45, 4 January 2006 (UTC)1/3/2006 beadtot

Consistency

"Chomsky insists on a consistent definition of "terrorism" regardless of the identity of the perpetrator, and has therefore described the U.S as "a leading terrorist state.""

So a consistent definition of terrorism logically implies that the U.S. is a terrorist state? Tom Harrison Talk 18:35, 5 January 2006 (UTC)


That's the implication. ('If only Americans were consistent, they would by definition acknowledge that they are terrorists; it's only their inconsistency that allows them to claim otherwise.") I don't like it either. Feels like a rhetorical ploy, like we walked in on a three-card monte game. BYT 18:40, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Examples

The examples listed in the article for operations organized or supported by the U.S. that some have called "terrorism" gives the misimpression that Mai Lai massacre is one of the only such events since WII. The casual reader is thus given the impression that this issue is just an academic exercise.

To rectiy this situation, today I added several post-war examples, which I prefaced by something like "some critics have also given the following as examples of terrorist operations organized or supported by the U.S." Operation Ajax, Operation Condor, Operation Northwoods (proposed by the joint chiefs but never implemented, the Cuban Project (also known as Operation Mongoose).

Why was this deleted? Will the deleter please identify her/himself and her/his reasons? If you check Wipidia's entries under each of these, you'll find ample reasons why some have suggested these as examples of American terrorism? What part of this do you dispute, deleter? GB in NY Jan 5/06.

Hi GB; First, you can always see who did anything by looking at the page history. There is a tab at the top labeled history that will show you who did what, with a brief summary of the edit.
What you wrote, "some critics have also given the following as examples..." is not well enough cited. "Some critics say," while common, is the language of innuendo. We need to know who says. Find a notable published quote of someone calling Operation Northwoods terrorism, and I will support its inclusion here. This page is about American terrorism as a term, not as a thing. We are not collecting examples of actions by the U.S. that someone might consider terrorism. We want examples of people calling actions terrorism. Tom Harrison Talk 00:59, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
Further, we really ought not to use one Wikipedia article as the supporting citation for another. If someone, other than another Wikipedia editor, has called the murder of Archbishop Romero American terrorism, please find the citable quotation. Tom Harrison Talk 17:51, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Recent merger of Allegations of war crimes against U.S. officials

I think Allegations of war crimes against U.S. officials should not be merged into American terrorism (term). American terrorism (term) exists to document notable uses of the term 'American terrorism' in the media, and that's all. Anybody have thoughts? Tom Harrison Talk 21:22, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree the content should be unmerged back to Allegations of war crimes against U.S. officials or some other title. zen master T 22:51, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
I concur. Even from a strictly editorial standpoint, the article appears to make a drastic shift in its focus at the point of merging. This should definately be unmerged back to Allegations of war crimes against U.S. officials. -- ShinmaWa(talk) 03:06, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

While not necessarily being labeled as 'terrorism', the alleged war crimes that the mentioned US administrations have been accused of doing may be considered the closest thing to state sponsored terrorism the US government has participated. These examples, however speculative and ungrounded, are relevant to how the media, both past and present, have portrayed the listed administrations as controversial and corrupt. Luneraako 23:01, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree that it's relevant to media portrayal, but this article is about the term American terrorism, as a term. If the alleged actions aren't labeled as terrorism, they aren't really relevant to use of the term 'American terrorism.' I also think there is a distinction to be made between atrocities, war crimes, and terrorism. I'd be reluctant to open this page up to general-purpose anti-U.S. allegations. The list of alleged war crimes might do better continuing on its own.
Do you not think that there's enough substance to Allegations of war crimes against U.S. officials for it to stand alone as an article? Maybe there could be an article addressing anti-US rhetoric in general; And you are lynching Negroes, etc. Or it might be merged with State terrorism#United States.
Maybe it should be remerged to State terrorism#United States. However, for the sake of simplicity and to prevent unnecessary debate, I propose that we first decide if the material should be unmerged from this article back to the original article, then determine if the original article should be merged with State terrorism (perferrably on its talk page, not this one.) -- ShinmaWa(talk) 03:06, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
I agree; one thing at a time. Tom Harrison Talk 03:20, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

I intend to un-merge Allegations of war crimes against U.S. officials. Tom Harrison Talk 20:34, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Finshed; The material is now at Allegations of war crimes against U.S. officials. Tom Harrison Talk 15:03, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Move

The discussion about the title seems to have died down since December but by no means was resolved so this seems like as good a time as any for starting the move discussion. Basically, I oppose the use of "(term)" to disambiguation in the absense of a direct namespace conflict. The disambiguation page that is at American terrorism should be moved to American terrorism (disambiguation) and this page should be moved there. The disambiguation notice on this page should be "For other uses, see American terrorism (disambiguation)." This is the de facto consensus across Wikipedia. This is why we dont have Bushism (term) or God (fictional character). savidan(talk) (e@) 01:27, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps you should start a trend and include America in a set of moves. Ewlyahoocom 09:03, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
shrugs Doesn't sound like there's opposition to me. Done. —Nightstallion (?) 07:20, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Funny how there are all these voices here for doing something about this content but when it happens it is instantly reverted. BlizzardGhost 14:42, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

@ usage of the term

HenryS said: Many people use the the term American terrorism with meaning terrorism in America. There are famous acts of terror and terrorists in the USA, so the term is pure legitimate. On other hand some people use the term with meaning terrorism of the USA, as a state. That is meaningless (see Terrorism)
"Dear HenryS, June 29, you added the above. It consists of 4 statements I think: Meaning A, then your opinion, then meaning B, then your opinion on that. Firstly, I think this is already covered in the disambiguation page, which is mentioned on top of this article. Secondly, I believe that state terrorism and terrorism by a state are two completely different things. The first being overt, and directed towards its own population, the second usually covert, and directed towards non-citizens. Hope this helps. — Xiutwel (talk) 08:53, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

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